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THE SERVIDOR 

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THE NEW ENTRANCE DOOR FOR 
HOTEL GUEST-ROOMS 



ADVANCE PROOF SHEETS 
FROM OUR FORTHCOMING 
SERVIDOR CATALOG 




(patents allowed and pending) 



COPYRIGHT 1917 
THE SERVIDOR CO. 



THE SERVIDOR CO. 



101 PARK AVENUE 

NEW YORK 



.•» . 



/ 

©CU470426 

JUL 25 1917 

/ 

, / v 






INTRODUCTION 

THE Hotel Business is the fourth largest 
industry in this country. Hitherto, its 
chief revenues have been derived from 
three sources only, the sale of rooms, food, 
and drinks. 

Today, one of these sources is cut off in 
over fifty per cent of the states, and it is 
more or less curtailed or restricted through- 
out the entire country. 

Hotels are searching for means to make 
up this loss. Not only are new economies 
being practiced, and more attention given 
to possible by-products of the hotel, but, 
what is even more essential and far more 
difficult to achieve, new sources of hotel 
revenue are being - sought. 

These cold facts led to the invention of 
the Servidor. And we would ask the reader 
to keep these facts in mind when he reads 
the pages that follow, whether his viewpoint 
is that of Hotel Builder, Owner, Architect, 
or Lessor. 

The Servidor Company. 



INDEX 



THE SERVIDOR STORY IN BRIEF 5 

What the Servidor Is 5 

The Purpose of the Servidor 5 

SERVIDORED VENTILATION 5 

The Ordinary Hotel Transom 5 

The Servidor's Perfect Ventilation 6 

SEVEN SPECIAL SERVIDOR ADVANTAGES 6 

THE DOOR THAT MAKES MONEY... 7 

The Servidor a Profitable Investment 7 

The Actual Cost of the Servidor 7 

Converting Guest Convenience into Hotel Profits 7 

How the Servidor Stimulates Business 8 

The Silent Salesman on the Guest's Table 8 

THE SERVIDOR SERVICE AND THE OTHER. 9-11 

The Old Way 
The Servidor Way 

HOW CAN A HOTEL INCREASE ITS REVENUES 12 

Sources of Revenue Slighted or Ignored •. 12 

Vendors Outside the Circus Grounds 12 

Servidor Service That Solves Hotel Problems 12 

Constant Publicity Day and Night 12 

Shopping, without Leaving Your Room 13 

SERVIDORED LAUNDRY WORK 14 

Increasing This Service ' . 14 

The Servidor Way .- 14 

SERVIDORED SHOE-SHINE SERVICE 15 

A Slighted Source of Profit 15 

Shoes Shined While You Sleep 15 

Broadening the Field of Service " 16 

SERVIDORED BAR AND WATERS SERVICE 17 

Developing Room-Service Possibilities 17 

In States Where Bars Are Prohibited 17 

How the Servidor Service Book Helps 17 

When the Guest Gets the Servidor Habit 18 

SERVIDORED VALET SERVICE 19 

A Little Industry with Big Possibilities 19 

How Valet Service Can Be Developed 19 

Living Up To the Possibilities of Service 20 

Personal Valet Service Not Displaced 20 

SERVIDORED MERCHANDISE— SELLING TO GUESTS 21 

The Servidor as a Needed Service 21 

When the Hotel Stops Turning Away Profits 21 

The Servidor's Simple System 21 

The Servidor Service Book — For the Guest Room 22 

SERVIDORING OLD DOORS ! 23 

Putting Servidor Service into Old Doors 23 

What the New Service Means 23 



The Servidor Story in Brief 



WHAT THE SERVIDOR IS 

The Hotel Servidor is a silent Servant, unobtrusive, invisible, im- 
personal. 

It is the entrance door of the guest-room, fitted with a full-length 
cabinet. This cabinet has two doors, one on Room Side and one on 
Corridor Side. These doors cannot be opened at the same time. 
An interlocking device prevents this; thus it is impossible for any 
one to enter or see into a room through its Servidor. 

THE PURPOSE OF THE SERVIDOR 

The Servidor adds to the comfort, convenience and privacy of guests. 
It adds to the hotel profits and is economical and efficient because it 
cuts out the delay of messengers and repeated calls to deliver goods 
when guests are absent. The Servidor is always ready to deliver 
goods to the guest room or from the guest room. 

In the Servidor Cabinet the guest hangs clothes to be pressed, places 
shoes to be polished, linen to be laundered, or any other articles re- 
quiring service. 

Into it from the corridor these goods are returned. Special orders 
for news-stand, cigar-stand, bar or other departments, are placed in 
the same way, as also may be all mail, telegrams, newspapers, and 
packages. 

A telephone call from the guest to the hotel announces the deposit 
in the Servidor of something requiring service. And when the guest 
desires anything delivered to his room he has merely to phone, stat- 
ing his want. 

A Servidor signal device inside the room announces to the guest a 
completed service awaiting in the Servidor. 



Servidored Ventilation 

THE ORDINARY HOTEL TRANSOM 

The Servidor, aside from its special features, combines door and 
transom in one. The ordinary hotel transom has many disadvantages. 
It is not easy to open or to close; it takes away the sense of privacy 



of an unt ransomed room: when open, it admits light into the room 
from the corridor; it carries sounds from room to corridor and from 
corridor to room. Being but a single vent it gives poor ventilation. 

THE SERVIDOR'S PERFECT VENTILATION 

The Servidor has a vent at the bottom and at the top, ensuring per- 
fect circulation of air. The openings are hidden and both vents can 
be opened or closed at one operation by merely pushing small buttons 
over the knob. The combined opening of the two ventilators is 
equal to that of a circular opening twelve inches in diameter. Even 
with the two ventilators open the Servidor is light-proof, sight-proof 
and more sound-proof than the ordinary transomed door. 



Seven Special Servidor Advantages 

The Servidor, with its graceful swell-front, is more attractive than 
the ordinary flat door. 

The Servidor is as simple in operation as opening and shutting any 
closet door. 

The Servidor is safe because opening either door automatically locks 
the other, so that entrance from the corridor through the Servidor is 
impossible. 

The Servidor is convenient and time-saving to both the guest and 
the hotel. 

The Servidor is sanitary because its two cleverly constructed, hidden 
ventilators, readily opened, give thorough circulation of air. 

The Servidor is seclusive because, even with the ventilators opened, 
it is light-proof, sight-proof and far more sound-proof than an open 
transom. 

The Servidor is profitable because it increases demands for money- 
making service and sells merchandise. 



The Door That Makes Money 

THE SERVIDOR A PROFITABLE INVESTMENT 

The ordinary guest-room entrance door costs considerable money. 
So does the old conventional ventilator, the transom, above the door- 
way. Neither of these produces any revenue. In doing away 
with them the Servidor provides the guest room with a better and 
more attractive entrance door and with better and more scientific 
ventilation. More than this, far more than this, it also improves 
room service and increases room revenues. 

Thus the Servidor is not merely an improved substitute for door and 
transom; it is a service giver and money maker. 

Basing the Servidor 's value solely upon its betterment of service — 
its cost is a good investment. When to its service value is added its 
power to increase direct profits, the Servidor becomes A SALE AND 
SERVICE STATION for the guest room which no modern hotel, 
new or old, can profitably do without. 

Its original cost becomes a detail. Should the Servidor induce but 
one shoe-shine a week from a room — to say nothing of the great 
number of other possible sales per week — its annual earnings, aside 
from its service value, would pay a fair dividend on its cost. 



THE ACTUAL COST OF THE SERVIDOR 

To the new hotel the cost of the Servidor is merely its cost over and 
above that of the door and transom which it supersedes. 

In hotels already built the old doors may be transformed into 
Servidors with hardly any disturbance of regular business. Each 
Servidor is independent of the others ; the moment one is installed it 
becomes operative at once. 



CONVERTING GUEST CONVENIENCE INTO HOTEL PROFITS 

Whatever adds to the comfort, convenience or pleasure of a guest 
adds to a hotel's money-making power. It is the feature that is 
talked of; it gives the hotel its best advertising — the praise of pleased 
patrons. It wins guests and it holds them. The Servidor thus di- 
rectly increases the sale of rooms. And to the Servidor, of course, 
must be credited all revenues of the entire hotel which result from 
this increase. 



HOW THE SERYIDOR STIMULATES BUSINESS 

The Servidor stimulates an extra demand on the hotel service — 
clothes-pressing, shoe-polishing, bar, cigars and cigarettes, news- 
papers and magazines. It does this by making service easier; it cuts 
out the interruption, impatient waiting and the intrusion of servants 
at inopportune times, and it gives silent, invisible, impersonal 
service. 

The easier you make it for anyone to spend money, the more money 
is spent. If a guest, desiring to leave his room in the morning with 
freshly polished shoes, balks at the bother and inconvenience, and, 
therefore, goes outside for the service, the hotel loses doubly — once 
in profit and once in pleasing a guest. A hotel knows what it 
makes; it rarely considers what it should have made. 

THE SILENT SALESMAN ON THE GUEST'S TABLE 

The Servidor, through The Servidor Service Book For The Guest- 
Room (see page 22) introduces an entirely new and profitable source 
of revenue. Money hitherto spent outside the hotel is now spent 
inside. The attractive catalogue induces the guest to buy what he 
had not even known that he wanted. There is good profit, the guest 
is pleased by the convenience, and with the silent impersonal delivery 
which the Servidor alone makes possible. 



The Servidor means a new long step in hotel progress. Yesterday's 
luxury becomes today's necessity and tomorrow's common-place. 
The Servidor pays directly and indirectly, pays in larger patronage, 
pays in increased profits and pays in the broadened field of activity 
it suggests, inspires and controls. 



The Servidor Service and the Other 



There are two kinds of service given to hotel guests in their rooms — 
the Servidor Service and the Other. The Other is the Old Way; 
The Servidor is the New Way. 

THE OLD WAY 

The guest after getting ready for bed, finds his water pitcher empty ; 
he telephones and waits for the boy. It seems twenty minutes, per- 
haps it is only three, before the knock comes. He sidles back of the 
door, holds it open just enough to admit a head, arms and pitcher, so 
that he may not be seen by passing guests in the corridor, and takes 
in the ice-water and shuts the door. 

THE SERVIDOR WAY 

He telephones "Servidor Ice Water," knows there will be no disturb- 
ing knock, and sits down to look over his paper. In a few minutes he 
notes the signal of the Servidor, and opening it finds his ice water 
waiting him. It seems like magic, like rubbing Aladdin's lamp, and 
having the desired article appear by invisible hands. 



THE OLD WAY 

Then he suddenly remembers he meant to have his suit pressed. He 
telephones again; goes again through the waiting period for that 
knock which seems so long in coming. 

Just before going to bed it occurs to him that a drink and a sand- 
wich or two would be attractive just at that moment. But he thinks 
of the bother and the waiting and the intrusion and he tells himself 
he doesn't care and he foregoes it. The bar and the restaurant have 
lost sales. He is about to put out his shoes to be polished when he 
hears talking and laughter in the corridor. He shies at the thought 
of the open door and concludes he will have them shined "tomorrow." 

THE SERVIDOR WAY 

Because it means easy, silent, unobtrusive, impersonal service the 
Servidor would have met all his needs without failing in one. His 
clothes and shoes would have been placed in the Servidor, and he 
would have enjoyed his drink and the sandwiches and felt a bit of 
pleasure in Servidor Service. 



THE OLD WAY 

In the morning when taking his bath he hears a loud knock on his 
door. His shouted answer is deadened by the sound of the running 
water. The knocking continues. Rushing out of the ste.am and the 
suds, he seizes a bath-robe and rushes to the door. It is the valet 
with his clothes. Then preparing to shave he finds he has forgotten 
to pack his safety blades. This does not add to his pleasure and, un- 
shaven and with shoes unpolished, he goes to breakfast. 

THE SERYIDOR WAY 

There would be no interruption to his bath, and glowing and re- 
freshed he would open his Servidor, take out his neatly pressed 
clothes and polished shoes, his letters and telegrams, the morning 
paper, etc. Calm and unruffled he would proceed to shave. 

The missing blades would not disturb him. The Servidor Service 
Book on the table is his first aid in emergency. When looking 
through it for the list number of the safety blades, he sees certain 
tooth brushes attractively advertised and remembers that he needs 
a new one. The pictures of other articles also inspire him to order 
though he had not been conscious of needing them. In a few mo- 
ments of waiting, filled in with reading his mail, the Servidor delivers 
his orders, including his blades. 

The Servidored guest goes down to breakfast properly groomed, rest- 
ful, cool and in good humor with himself, the hotel and the world. 
There has been no one in his room, no one knocking at his door, yet 
every want has been supplied, and the hotel has realized on a hitherto 
unconsidered by-product possibility. 



THE OLD WAY 

The lady, in room 124, just next door, has had a slightly different ex- 
perience though similar in principle. She has returned to her room 
at 4 p. m., tired with shopping and sight-seeing and lies down for a 
little sleep before writing some. letters and dressing for dinner. The 
thought of ordering a bottle of mineral water comes to her. But the 
bother and the waiting and the rising from her nap to let the boy in 
makes her forego it. 

She is just going off into a doze when the sound of a knocking looms 
loud in her ears. Hastily putting on a dressing-gown she opens the 
door and admits the boy with the laundry. In a few moments she is 
sleeping, but is again disturbed by another knocking. This time it is 
a store package. Her third trial is shortly interrupted by a boy with 
a special delivery letter. 

10 



A nap has become impossible, so she starts to write to the folks at 
home. She is a bit nervous and explodes her emotions in the letter 
mostly about the nap she did not get. Then when dressing for din- 
ner she finds she needs black pins, talcum powder and some other 
little things. She has to get along without them and resigns herself to 
it. 



THE SERVIDOR WAY 

She enjoys the mineral water the Servidor delivers silently and im- 
personally, and the nap has been restful and refreshing, and her other 
wants are recognized and met as if by magic. 

The laundry, the store package, and her mail are waiting her when 
she wakes, and her eyes rest on the Servidor signal that tells of quiet 
service. Her letters home advertise the Servidor because her mind 
is filled with it and her enthusiasm overflows to the whole hotel serv- 
ice. 

The missing articles needed for her evening toilette are found listed 
in the Servidor Service Book on the table. She orders them and 
other things she had forgotten were even needed until she saw them 
pictured in the Servidor Service Book. 

The prices of the goods being just what she would pay in the stores, 
with no charge for service, no bother about making change, but all 
put on her bill for settlement as one transaction appeals strongly to 
her; she becomes a Servidor enthusiast and advertiser. That's Servi- 
dor Service. 



11 



How Can a Hotel Increase Its 

Revenues 

SOURCES OF REVENUE SLIGHTED OR IGNORED 

The hotel today has three main sources of income — rooms, restaurant 
and bar. There are other minor incidental features, but these rarely 
receive the attention they deserve. The hotel has by-products of 
great money-making possibility. Some of these are partially recog- 
nized but inadequately developed, some ignored, some paying merely 
a rental or a percentage on profits, some are just carelessly thrown 
away. They represent wasted opportunities; they mean money loss 
just as actual as if they were material waste. 

VENDORS OUTSIDE THE CIRCUS GROUNDS 

Have you ever thought of the number of vendors of all kinds that 
suddenly swarm outside the circus grounds? The great canvas- 
covered show brings the customers together; the vendors outside 
gather in the merchandise profits. In a way this is true of hotels. 
Around them gather little shops — news-stands, bootblack stands, 
clothes -pressing shops, cigar and stationery stores, drug stores, and 
lunch rooms and restaurants. They are counting largely on hotel 
trade — and they get it. 

Why does this trade leave the hotel? Why does a guest go outside 
the hotel for anything the hotel can supply? How can this lack of 
service be remedied, this leakage of profits be stopped? Put in this 
direct concrete form, the question is shown to be vital. It is too big 
in importance to be ignored. 

SERVIDOR SERVICE THAT SOLVES HOTEL PROBLEMS 

The Servidor Service in itself solves a large part of the problems; the 
idea behind the Servidor Service, its principle and philosophy, solves 
the remainder of the problem. The Servidor means not only bettered 
service but a new point of view on service, a new angle on efficiency, 
inspiring and increasing the demand by making guest-room service 
easier. 

CONSTANT PUBLICITY DAY AND NIGHT 

The hotel valet shop is tucked away mysteriously somewhere. The 
little card in the guest's room with its schedule of prices of clothes- 

12 



pressing does not grip the attention of the occasional traveler. The 
valet service seems distant, external, not an organic element of the 
hotel itself, as real as restaurant or bar. It is not brought home 
vividly to the mind of the guest as a near-at-hand service. 

The Servidor tells him of this service by its very presence; it keeps 
telling him every time he opens or shuts the guest room door; it tells 
him of it in the Servidor Service Book on his table, tells it in a direct, 
personal way that sinks into his mind to stay. Every time he raises 
his eyes the Servidor suggests anew valet, bar, restaurant, laundry, 
shoe-shining, mail, merchandise — all the manifold service for which 
it stands. 

Valeting and other phases of hotel service have been exclusive, the 
luxury of the few, the Servidor makes them the necessity of the 
many. 

SHOPPING, WITHOUT LEAVING YOUR ROOM 

The drug store has soaps, safety razors and blades, tooth brushes, 
powders, simple toilet articles and similar things bought by the hotel 
guests. The notion store, near by, has collars, neckties, garters and 
such like. Other stores have similar articles of emergency need to 
travelers. The Servidor Service Book covers dozens of separate 
items, the very cream of the best-selling, needed articles of daily use, 
lists them and pictures them, so they may be sold to guests at the 
regular price and delivered in their rooms without extra charge. 

This is how the hotel can increase its revenue, service and dividends. 
The Servidor alone makes it possible. 



13 



Servidored Laundry Work 

INCREASING THIS SERVICE 

Servidored laundry service is the shortest distance between soiled 
linen sent out and clean linen returned. Guests rarely trouble about 
laundry as long as there's anything clean left in the bag or trunk. 
There's a tendency to take it all home or on to the next town. Hotels 
have just accepted this situation without trying to overcome it, tak- 
ing what they get and letting the rest go. The Servidor does not do 
this; it makes it all so easy and attractive that a guest's impulse to 
have the work done isn't upset by his second thought. 

THE SERVIDOR WAY 

The Servidor advertises the laundry. It does not assume that the 
guest knows all about the service. It tells him every time he opens 
the Servidor or the Servidor Service Book. It does not over-empha- 
size it, but there is always a gentle reminder, "lest he forget." The 
Servidored guest room may have laundry lists and cotton or paper 
bags on which is printed a notice somewhat like this: 

"Place your laundry in this bag 

"Hang it up in the Servidor and notify Hotel 

"That's all." 

If the guest is in his room when his laundry is returned through the 
Servidor, he removes it at his pleasure. There is no need that he act 
as door-tender, receiving clerk and good Samaritan. If he is absent 
from his room his laundry is Servidored just the same. There is no 
need that the hotel entrust some one with a pass key to his room, a 
practice, by the way, which concerns the hotel more than the guest, 
although objectionable to both. 

The bother, annoyance, delay and intrusion of the old way is saved by 
the Servidor. Women guests particularly appreciate it. 



14 



Servidored Shoe-Shine Service 



A SLIGHTED SOURCE OF PROFIT 

Cleaning and polishing shoes is a business so universally patronized 
that thousands of men and boys make their living by it. It supplies 
a great demand, no small part of which is created by the travelling 
public, or, in other words, by hotel patrons. As a significant proof 
of this you will always find shoe-shining parlors in the close neighbor- 
hood of any big hotel. They prosper partly on what is practically 
a by-product of the hotel, one which the hotel wastes as it fails to 
develop its service and revenue values. 

The Servidor gives the shoe-shining service in hotels an entirely 
new aspect. Makes it a service in the true sense of the word. En- 
able^ it to develop quickly into a revenue producer of no little impor- 
tance. 

The service is made simpler, less obtrusive. The guest does no wait- 
ing. He merely places his shoes in the Servidor and phones the hotel 
to that effect. That is all. The shoes are removed, cleaned, and 
replaced, the guest giving the service no thought, no attention, no 
time. The charge for this service is entered against the guest's 
account. There is no intrusion, no bother making change, no in- 
voluntary gratuity imposed. 

Meanwhile the guest can shave, bathe, or write letters, etc. He 
can take his customary nap, or, if he likes, he can remove his slippers, 
put on other shoes and leave his room knowing that he will find his 
newly-cleaned shoes in the Servidor upon his return. There is no 
needless waste of time. These advantages, of course, appeal not 
alone to male guests, but with equal if not greater force to all ladies 
and children in the hotel. 

Contrast this with time and motion lost in looking up a shoe-shining 
parlor, or a stand in the public wash-room of the hotel, or possibly 
the boot-black stand in the barber shop. 



SHOES SHINED WHILE YOU SLEEP 

Another distinctive appeal which the SERVIDOR makes to the 
guest, possibly the strongest, is the fact that he can Servidor his shoes 
upon retiring for the night. In the morning — when everybody 
particularly desires clean shoes — he finds them, newly cleaned, in 
his Servidor cabinet. Again, no loss of time. 

15 



Contrast this with the verv inconvenient, if not hazardous custom 
— more European than American, however — of the guest cautiously 
placing his or her shoes outside the door and stealthily recovering 
them the next mornins'. 



i &* 



BROADENING THE FIELD OF SERVICE 

Taken all in all, the hotel shoe-shining service is improved immensely 
by being Servidored. Former hurdles are removed. Its advantages 
appeal all the time to all the guests in the hotel, man, woman and 
child. Increased patronage will follow and very shortly this long- 
neglected service will become a profitable by-product of the hotel. 



16 



Servidored Bar and Waters Service 



DEVELOPING ROOM-SERVICE POSSIBILITIES 

The hotel bar has greater possibility of increasing revenue by in- 
creasing service to rooms than is usually considered. To meet the 
situation the bar with its range of service should be advertised to the 
guest, it should be brought constantly and vividly before him; 
ordering should be made easier, delivery should be made simpler and 
less expensive by eliminating the intrusion into guests' rooms. 

The Servidor does all these things and it does much more. It does a 
unique work in a unique way, and it makes money. 

IN STATES WHERE BARS ARE PROHIBITED 



In many states legislation has cut off a large source of hotel revenue. 
Hotel men in viewing the situation will soon realize that, to a degree, 
it merely diverts the demand from one class of goods to another. 
By pushing the sale of soft drinks and mineral, medicinal and table 
waters, popularizing them as never before, a large part of the revenue 
considered lost can be preserved. 

Male guests are in their rooms about twelve hours a day, on the 
average, and female guests from seventeen to eighteen hours. In 
all this time the service of an un-Servidored hotel makes no selling 
appeal to guests in their rooms, no suggestion, no information, no 
publicity that would inspire demand. 

HOW THE SERVIDOR SERVICE BOOK HELPS 

The book itself is attractive. It catches the eye of the guest, possi- 
bly with his family or with friends in the room. It is a novelty, dis- 
tinctly new. It awakens curiosity and interest. He reads it casually 
and while he had not thought of anything to drink, some item at- 
tracts his attention and he orders it. He is glad, too, to demonstrate 
to his friends the magic of Servidor Service. 

As he turns over the pages he learns or he is reminded that should he 
need a table or mineral water, at any hour, day or night, the hotel 
can Servidor him Congress, Vichy, White Rock, Apollinaris, Lithia, 
Clysmic, or the kind he takes at home. 

He learns, or he is reminded, that in the morning should a cathartic 
water be needed the hotel can Servidor him Hunyadi, Red Raven, 
Carlsbad or Pluto, which he may have thought he could get only 
at a drug store. 

17 



He learns that soft drinks like Club Soda, Coca Cola, milk, butter- 
milk, giner ale, sarsaparilla, eider, lemonade, malted milk, grape 
juice or any of the hotel's special list of cooling drinks for hot nights 
or safe hot drinks for cold nights can be delivered in a few moments 
by Servidor and that whatever the hotel sells, the Servidor will de- 
liver. 

WHEN THE GUEST GETS THE SERVIDOR HABIT 

In a very short time the guest will associate the Servidor in his mind 
vividly with magic service such as he has never known before. If 
anything of any kind is needed, his first thought will be "Can I get 
that by Servidor" and if he is at all reasonable, the answer in most 
cases will be "Yes." The Servidor will constantly remind him of the 
Servidor Service Book and it will remind him of the Servidor, a 
duality of service in one. 



18 



Servidored Valet Service 



A LITTLE INDUSTRY WITH BIG POSSIBILITIES 

Valet service is a vitally important by-product of the hotel but, as a 
rule, its money-making possibilities have not been generally recog- 
nized. It is now an exclusive service, a luxury to a comparatively few 
of the guests, while it should be a necessity to the many. The hotel 
has the customers and it creates the demand, but the little tailor-shop 
around the corner gets a large share of the business. It is not a theory 
but a condition that the hotel must realize and meet. 



HOW VALET SERVICE CAN BE DEVELOPED 

The guest uses the valet service, as a rule, only when he must. The 
reasons are three-fold. First, it is inconvenient. It means, usually 
when the guest is ready for bed — calling for a boy, waiting, opening 
the door and the intrusion into the room. In the morning the 
clothes are returned when the guest is sleeping, bathing, shaving or 
dressing, most inopportune times to be interrupted. 



With the Servidor Service the guest merely hangs up his clothes in 
the Servidor and telephones the hotel. In the morning he removes 
the neatly-pressed suit and the polished shoes at the very moment 
most convenient to him. 

The second reason is Cost : The hotel usually charges from 75 cents 
to $1.50 for pressing a suit. The little tailor shop around the corner 
charges 50 cents; the hotel with a modern pressing machine, doing the 
work of three or four men and doing it better, could do it for the same 
price and make 35 cents. 

The Servidor Service by constantly advertising the clothes-pressing, 
and by its convenience in delivery to the hotel and back to the guest, 
inspires and creates such a volume of business that clothes-pressing 
is popularized as never before. 

The third deterrent is gratuities. The guest finds the enforced tariff 
on exports and imports annoying, distasteful, and, in most instances, 
prohibitive. The fee on giving out the suit to be pressed, and the fee 
on receiving it back in the morning, added to the hotel's higher price 
for service are hurdles that should be removed. The Servidor by its 
invisible, impersonal service meets this evil as it has the other two 
objections to un-Servidored Valet Service. 

19 



LIVING UP TO THE POSSIBILITIES OF SERVICE 

Valet service in hotels is usually limited to clothes-pressing and shoe- 
polishing for male guests, with but a sprinkling of service to women. 
They may know that they may find it useful, but somehow they are 
not inspired to patronize it in proportion to their needs. There are 
shoes to be polished, gloves to be cleaned, shirtwaists to be cleaned, 
skirts to be pressed and spots to be removed. Dry-cleaning could 
be added to the valet service either in a hotel plant that could also 
be utilized for the hotel's own needs, or the work could be done out- 
side. 

All these and other phases could be handled readily through Servidor 
Service which alone solves the evils and objections of the present sys- 
tem. 

PERSONAL VALET SERVICE NOT DISPLACED 

The Servidor does not discourage nor discoimt personal valet service 
when such is desired. It merely simplifies it and renders it easier. 



20 



Servidored Merchandise — Selling 

to Guests 



THE SERVIDOR AS A NEEDED SERVICE 

This is a new service for hotels, a new practical means of increasing 
profits. In many states, legislation has abolished the bar alto- 
gether. The situation is serious. It means a loss of thousands of 
dollars a year to the hotel. Hotels are anxiously searching for a 
means to make up this deficit. The Servidor supplies this means, in 
great part at least. The Servidor not only galvanizes every department 
of the hotel to higher activity, efficiency, and money-making power, but 
in addition opens up an entirely neiv field of merchandise sales profits. 
In states not yet touched by such legislation the Servidor is also a 
much needed money-maker. 

WHEN THE HOTEL STOPS TURNING AWAY PROFITS 

Many stores are making money by selling to hotel guests the many 
day-by-day essentials constantly needed by travelers. The Servidor 
plan enables the hotel to sell the goods and make the profit. It is 
cashing in on a neglected opportunity. These articles are razor- 
blades, tooth-brushes, shaving-soaps, toilet-soaps, garters, tooth- 
powders, and a host of similar things, all standard articles of national 
reputation, in constant demand by hotel guests, both men and 
women. The Servidor makes it simple and easy for the hotel, simple 
and easy for the guest. Only by the Servidor are all the seeming 
problems mastered. 

THE SERVIDOR'S SIMPLE SYSTEM 

For the hotel to attempt to open accounts with dozens of new firms, 
with all the details of correspondence is unnecessary. To buy the 
large stock of each article required to secure best rates is unnecessary. 
To arrange, prepare and print the dignified attractive expensive 
book fitting for the guest room is unnecessary. 

The Servidor Company assumes all this for the hotel. It means only 
one account; the hotel buys only what it needs as it needs them; the 
hotel gets the regular retailer's price on each article; the hotel receives 
without cost Servidor Service Books sufficient to supply one for each 
room with a generous number in reserve. 

A complete assortment of goods covering a liberal supply of every 

21 



/ 



article listed means but a small investment. The hotel runs no risk; 
any articles unsold, if in good condition, can be returned at any time 
to the Servidor Company, with full credit for the amount paid. 

THE SERVIDOR SERVICE BOOK -FOR THE GUESTROOM 

It is a handsome attractive book, appropriate to even the finest guest 
room. It lists every article by a number, to make ordering easy. 
People like to see what they are getting; the Servidor Service Book 
pictures them so vividly that guests see them as really as if the articles 
themselves. The pictures, too, have an appeal that makes guests 
buy other articles in addition to what they intended to buy. The 
mere name of the article in printed letters does not stimulate the 
guest's sense of need as does the picture. 

If the guest, in unpacking, finds he has forgotten razor-blades, talcum 
powder, tooth brush, or what not, he looks them up rapidly in the 
book by the index. He telephones the hotel "Servidor me Numbers 
so and so." In a few minutes without any interruption of what he 
is doing and no intrusion, the Servidor signal shows him they have 
been delivered and are waiting him. 

In the front of the Servidor Service Book several pages are devoted 
exclusively to "Miscellaneous Servidor Service" such as Clothes 
Pressing and Cleaning, Laundry, Shoe Cleaning and Polishing, News 
Stand, Mail and Telegrams, Cigars, Cigarettes, Mineral Waters, etc. 

The Servidor means a silent, invisible salesman and silent, invisible 
delivery. 



22 



"IJ 



Servidoring Old Doors 

PUTTING SERVIDOR SERVICE INTO OLD DOORS 

Hotels now planned or in process of erection may adopt Servidors 
with small additional cost considering the saving in old style door 
and transom. 

The service is equally available for hotels already in operation and 
wishing to have the advantage of Servidors. Old doors can be trans- 
formed by removing the panels and inserting the Servidor cabinet. 
The whole work can be done with great simplicity. By taking a few 
rooms at a time and doing the work rapidly there would be no real 
displacement of the regular activities of the hotel. As soon as any 
one door is finished, Servidor Service for that room could begin 
without waiting for the others. The old wood and the new match 
perfectly; it is practically an all-new Servidor. 

WHAT THE NEW SERVICE MEANS 

Servidoring old doors does not merely make new doors; it makes a 
hotel with new service, new advertising power, new force in unifying 
and stimulating business in many departments, new possibilities for 
greater patronage and increased revenues. 



The Servidor should never be considered as an extra expense; it pays 
its own way and makes money; it removes the objections to the guest's 
full demand on the hotel's service; it transforms the guest's needs, 
convenience and privacy into profits. It is the door that makes 
money for the hotel. 



23 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 756 013 8 



Hollinger Corp. 
pH8.5 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 756 013 8 



u_n: . r~ 



